Commercially available image display systems in the medical field utilize various techniques to present image data to a user. Specifically, image data produced within modalities such as Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance (MR) and the like is displayed on a display terminal for review by a medical practitioner at a medical treatment site. This image data is used by the medical practitioner to determine the presence or absence of a disease, tissue damage, etc.
Currently, large volume imaging studies utilized by medical treatment sites, such as CT and MR, pose a significant diagnostic problem due to the large number of image data files that are created and stored for later review. A typical image dataset may easily contain over 2000 image slices that translate into a similar number of image data files organized into multiple image series. Due to the large number of slices contained in an image dataset it is inconvenient and time-intensive for the medical practitioner to manually navigate through the numerous image slices to identify the image slices that are most relevant to a current diagnosis.
Imaging systems exist today which alleviates this problem by allowing a user to select a three-dimensional (3D) coordinate position in a particular image and then automatically determining and displaying the closest image slice from the corresponding image series. Also, imaging systems that calculate the offset distance and display it, along with a cross hair referencing the cursor position within the closest image slice, are very useful to a medical practitioner and aid the medical practitioner in making an accurate diagnosis.
However, when the offset distance becomes too large, the displayed closest image slice and cross hair may not be an accurate representation of the 3D coordinates of the cursor position. Accordingly, the user may erroneously rely on the displayed closest image slice, even though the displayed closest image slice and the cross hair are not an accurate representation of the 3D coordinates of the cursor position.